Air warfare

Air warfare, also called aerial warfare, the tactics of military operations conducted by airplanes, helicopters, or other manned craft that are propelled aloft. Air warfare may be conducted against other aircraft, against targets on the ground, and against targets on the water or beneath it. Air warfare is almost entirely a creation of the 20th century, in which it became a primary branch of military operations.

Powered aircraft were first used in war in 1911, by the Italians against the Turks near Tripoli, but it was not until the Great War of 1914–18 that their use became widespread. At first, aircraft were unarmed and employed for reconnaissance, serving basically as extensions of the eyes of the ground commander. Soon, however, the need to deny such reconnaissance to the enemy led to air-to-air combat in which each side tried to gain superiority in the air. Fighter planes were armed with fixed, forward-firing machine guns that allowed the pilot to aim his entire aircraft at the enemy, and the effective range of these weapons (no more than about 200 yards) meant that the first aerial combat took place at very short range.

By the second year of the war fighter tactics emerged on all sides emphasizing basic concepts that, with modification, remained applicable through the jet age. First was the surprise attack; from the very beginning of aerial warfare in World War I, “jumping” or “bouncing” unsuspecting victims accounted for more kills than did the spectacular aerobatics of dogfighting. Because a pilot’s only warning system was the naked eye, attacking fighters, whenever possible, approached from the rear or dove out of the sun, where they could not be seen. The German ace Max Immelmann, in exploiting the superior abilities of his Fokker Eindeker to climb and dive quickly, helped expand aerial combat from the horizontal into the vertical dimension. Immelmann developed what became known as the Immelmann turn, in which an attacking fighter dove past the enemy craft, pulled sharply up into a vertical climb until it was above the target again, then turned hard to the side and down so that it could dive a second time. Fighters operated at least in pairs, flying 50 to 60 yards apart, so that the wingman could protect the leader’s rear. Flying speed averaged 100 miles per hour, and communication was by hand signaling, rocking the wings, and firing coloured flares.

The next role to emerge for military aircraft was ground attack, in which planes, by strafing with machine guns and dropping rudimentary bombs, aided an advance on the ground, helped cover a retreat, or simply harassed the enemy. By the late stages of the war, ground-attack aircraft had forced almost all large-scale troop movements to be carried out at night or in bad weather.

By war’s end a fourth vision of air power arose—that of an independent air force attacking the enemy far from the front lines, the purpose being to destroy essential elements of the enemy’s war capability by bombing factories, transportation and supply networks, and even centres of government. This role, never effectively implemented in World War I, was spurred largely by the German air attacks on London. Carried out at first by zeppelin airships, the bombing was later done by aircraft such as the Gothabomber, which, by flying at night and often as high as 20,000 feet (forcing the crew to breathe bottled oxygen through a tube in the mouth), operated beyond the ceiling of many defensive fighters.

Thus, the basic roles that aircraft would play in modern war were presaged in World War I: reconnaissance, air superiority, tactical ground support, and strategic bombing.

The all-metal monoplane represented a huge increase in performance and firepower over the aircraft of World War I, and the effects were first seen in fighter tactics.

Air superiority

Airspeeds of the new fighters jumped to more than 400 miles per hour, and some planes could operate at altitudes of 30,000 feet. Wing-mounted machine guns and aerial cannon were lethal at 600 yards, and pilots communicated with one another and the ground via the radio telephone. These developments—especially the greater speeds—led Germans participating in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) to fly their Bf-109 fighters in loose, line-abreast Rotten, or pairs, about 200 yards apart. Two of these Rotten formed a Schwarm, and this flexible formation—called “finger-four” by English-speaking airmen—was eventually adopted by all the major air forces in World War II. An exception was the U.S. Navy, whose fighter pilots developed a system called the “Thach weave,” whereby two fighters would cover one another from attack from the rear. This proved highly successful against the Japanese.

Attacking out of the sun was still favoured, both because it preserved the element of surprise and because diving added speed. An alert defending fighter pilot, however, might use his attacker’s speed to his own advantage by executing a maneuver called a rudder reversal, in which he would turn and do a snap roll, suddenly reducing his forward motion so that the speeding attacker would overshoot and find the intended victim on his tail. Tight maneuvers such as the rudder reversal were most effective when attempted with such agile fighters as the British Spitfire and the Japanese “Zero.” Fighters such as the Bf-109 and the U.S. P-47 Thunderbolt, which were noted for their speed, best escaped by diving hard and pulling back up when the attacker had been shaken.

A diving maneuver called the split-S, half-roll, or Abschwung was frequently executed against bombers. Heavily armed fighters such as the British Hurricane or the German Fw-190, instead of approaching from the side or from below and to the rear, would attack head-on, firing until the last moment and then rolling just under the big planes and breaking hard toward the ground. The object was to break up the bomber formations so that individual ships could be set upon and destroyed.

Defensive fighter squadrons were directed by radar control stations on the ground to the vicinity of the bombers, at which point the pilots would rely once more upon the naked eye. This was adequate for day fighting, when enemy bombers could be seen miles away, but at night the pilots had to get within a few hundred yards before spotting a bomber’s silhouette against the sky or against the conflagration on the ground. For this reason, night fighting was ineffective until radar was installed in the planes themselves. This beginning of the age of electronic warfare required a novel teamwork between pilot and navigator, and it was best carried out in two-seat aircraft such as the British Beaufighter and Mosquito and the German Ju-88 and Bf-110. Some of these long-range, twin-engined night fighters also served as “intruders,” slipping into enemy bomber formations, following them home, and shooting them down over their own airfields.

Ground attack

The German Air Force, or Luftwaffe, was configured primarily to fly in support of ground forces, and, in the Spanish Civil War and the first years of World War II, the Ju-87Stukadive-bomber was its principal ground-attack craft. In a typical Stuka attack, several planes would circle above the target, then one plane after another would peel off to dive almost vertically before releasing its bombs, pulling up, and returning to the circle to dive again. In the Pacific Theatre, carrier-based dive-bombers such as the U.S. Dauntless and Helldiver and the Japanese Type 99 “Val” applied this maneuver to naval warfare. Dropping straight down from a cruising altitude of about 15,000 feet and releasing their bombs from below 2,000 feet, these planes destroyed or damaged many battleships and aircraft carriers. During the assault phase of amphibious landings, U.S. dive-bombers helped compensate for the flat trajectories of naval guns in disabling Japanese shore defenses. Because dive-bombers generally had top speeds in level flight of less than 300 miles per hour, they were most effective where air superiority had been secured by fighters such as the Zero or the U.S. F6F Hellcat. Spitfire pilots of the RAF made such short work of unescorted Stukas that they referred to these one-sided dogfights as “Stuka parties.”

Ground attack was most devastating when conducted by fighter-bombers, which were often converted air-superiority fighters. Taking advantage of their speed, British Spitfires and Mosquitos and U.S. P-51 Mustangs and P-38 Lightnings, flying very low to avoid radar detection, bombed and strafed countless airfields and infantry columns. Pilots of the P-51, after escorting bombers into Germany (see section immediately below), often freely attacked ground targets while racing back to England at treetop level. In North Africa in 1942–43, the Royal Air Force (RAF) perfected close-air support by concentrating its air power under a centralized control that was exercised jointly by the senior ground and air commanders in the theatre of operations. This system, by concentrating maximum force at decisive points as the desert campaigns unfolded, achieved a flexibility of employment that later emerged as the central tenet of air power.

World War II saw massive bombing of military targets and major cities. The big, slow-moving bombers operated in formations (sometimes numbering 1,000 or more) that were intended not to evade enemy defenses but to beat them back or simply swamp them with numbers.

The key to bombing during the day was to provide an escort of fighters adequate to turn back defending fighters. (Antiaircraft artillery was of little hazard to bombers flying above 30,000 feet, though few early World War II bombers would fly this high, the B-17 being the exception.) During the Battle of Britain (July–September 1940), a typical formation of German He-111, Ju-88, and Do-17 bombers would cross the English Channel at about 15,000 feet. Close escort would be provided by Bf-109s and Bf-110s weaving in and out of the formation. The Germans quickly learned that the twin-engined Bf-110s could not hold their own against the humbler Spitfires and Hurricanes and removed them from frontline daylight service. More effective were fighter sweeps, in which Bf-109s would leave the bombers and attack distant airfields before the defending fighters could get off the ground. But the Luftwaffe, in one of the major miscalculations of the aerial war, usually confined its fast, deadly fighters to close escort of the bomber formations.

The U.S. Army Air Force learned the value of fighter sweeps in its long-range daylight bombing of Germany, but not before placing what proved to be excessive faith in the capacity of its B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers to defend themselves with their own heavy armament. In late 1942 and early 1943 these bombers began to fly in what became known as the “combat box” formation, devised by Col. (later Gen.) Curtis E. LeMay. In such a formation, a single combat wing of about 48 bombers would be divided into three groups, with the lead group flying at 20,000 feet and the others trailing in echelon at intervals of 500 to 1,000 yards and at slightly higher altitudes. Within each group would be three squadrons, composed of two elements of three aircraft each, and the bombers would be staggered in such a way as to give their guns as free a field of fire as possible to cover themselves and their fellows.

The defensive formation was sorely tested in 1943, when, flying beyond the radius of the fighter escorts then available (less than 200 miles), U.S. bombers suffered losses too severe to be borne regularly. Activity over Germany was curtailed until the widespread adoption in late 1943 and early 1944 of droppable external fuel tanks that enabled P-38, P-47, and, particularly, P-51 fighters to fly escort the 1,000 miles to Berlin. With enough fighters to allow one escort for every bomber, some were cut loose to sweep the airspace hundreds of miles away. In this way, the Luftwaffe was finally overwhelmed.

Night bombing relieved bombers of the fighter threat (at least until effective radar was installed in planes), but it presented difficulties in finding and hitting targets. With visual navigation impossible except on the clearest moonlit nights, electronic aids became vital. In the blitz of London and other cities, the Luftwaffe used a system called Knickebein, in which bombers followed one radio beam broadcast from ground stations on the continent until that beam was intersected by another beam at a point over the target. Lead bombers dropped incendiary bombs, which set fires that guided other bombers carrying high explosives as well as more incendiaries.

From late 1943 the RAF used two radar-beam systems called Gee and Oboe to guide its Lancaster and Halifax bombers to cities on the Continent. In addition, the bombers carried a radar mapping device, code-named H2S, that displayed reasonably detailed pictures of coastal cities such as Hamburg, where a clear contrast between land and water allowed navigators to find the target areas. In order to “spoof” the Germans’ radar warning system, RAF planes dispensed “window,” which consisted of clouds of tinfoil strips that masked the bombers’ movements.

Because Japan had only limited defense radar capability and few fighters that could operate effectively at the U.S. B-29 Superfortresses’ bombing altitudes of 30,000 feet and above, the Superfortresses faced only spotty opposition in their long-range assaults on the Japanese home islands beginning in November 1944. Nevertheless, unpredictable weather over the target areas, plus the action of the jet stream on bombs dropped from 30,000 feet, made high-altitude bombing imprecise. In response, LeMay ordered low-level bombing runs. Flying at night to avoid enemy defenses, B-29s dropping incendiary bombs from 5,000 to 9,000 feet devastated more than 60 cities between March and July 1945.

The jet age

Toward the end of World War II, the first operational jet fighter, the German Me-262, outflew the best Allied escorts while attacking bomber formations. This introduced the jet age, in which aircraft soon flew at more than twice the speed of sound (741 miles per hour at sea level and 659 miles per hour at 36,000 feet) and easily climbed to altitudes of 50,000 feet. At the same time, advanced electronics removed the task of early warning from the pilot’s eye, and guided missiles extended the range of aerial combat, at least in theory, to beyond visual range.

Air superiority

Flying at supersonic or near-supersonic speeds, often climbing into the thin air of the stratosphere, jet fighters were far less maneuverable than their propeller-driven predecessors. This made necessary a formation even more flexible than the finger-four. One solution was the fluid-four, in which two fighters flying 300 yards apart would be trailed by another pair flying 2,000 to 3,000 yards to the side, 600 yards back, and 1,000 yards above. Separation of a mile or more would allow the trailing pair to cover the lead pair from surprise attack. This tactic was favoured by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. By contrast, the U.S. Navy had developed the World War II Thach weave into the loose deuce, a more flexible formation—either pilot, depending upon the combat situation, could adopt the role of lead fighter while the other covered as wingman—and, as experience over Vietnam would show, one better suited for the jet age.

Because jet fighters had excellent climbing but poor turning ability, fighting in the vertical plane became more important than ever. The scissors maneuver acquired a vertical variation, in which two fighters would execute a series of climbing turns or barrel rolls, each with the aim of slipping behind the plane that climbed too fast. Speed—usually the greatest asset of the fighter—could easily become a liability, and many maneuvers were developed to preserve its advantage. One such maneuver was the “high-speed yo-yo,” in which an attacking fighter, in pursuing a more maneuverable opponent in a tight circle, would pull up while turning; this would reduce his speed, allowing him to remain within the circle while placing him in a position to swoop down from above.

Supersonic speed actually accounted for a tiny fraction of flying time, since igniting the jet’s afterburner could consume a fighter’s fuel in minutes. Military cruising speed was almost always subsonic, with the afterburner being used only for pursuit or escape. In fact, fuel became such a pressing concern in jet warfare that fighters often could spend no more time flying combat air patrol than they spent flying to and from the patrol area.

Suppression of air defense

Beginning in the 1960s, radar-directed antiaircraft weapons proved so dangerous that they threatened to sweep aircraft from the sky. By flying low and fast, jinking (making quick, irregular changes in direction and speed), or diving in a steep spiral, aircraft often succeeded in evading these weapons, but only at the price of spoiling the mission. Air defenses had to be destroyed; in order to do this, aircraft had not only to outfly and outgun the weapons but also to foil their guidance mechanisms with electronic countermeasures (ECM).

In the Vietnam War the North Vietnamese deployed a formidable air-defense system based on Soviet-made anti-aircraft guns and SA-2 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). In response, the U.S. Navy and Air Force mounted complex air strikes employing aircraft of multiple types and capabilities. One such operation might begin with F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers entering the target area first to drop clouds of radar-reflecting metallic fibres called chaff. These would be followed by F-105 Thunderchiefs modified into “Wild Weasels” by the addition of radar homing and warning devices designed to jam some enemy radars and locate others. The Wild Weasels would guide other F-105s armed with radar-homing missiles, which would destroy the radars and SAM sites and clear the target area for the main strike force.

That air warfare in the jet age had effectively become electronic warfare was confirmed by the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973. In the first two days of that conflict, Israel lost 40 aircraft to Egyptian and Syrian air defenses. In June 1982, however, the Israeli air force displayed a new mastery of tactics in the electronic age by destroying Syrian SAM sites in al-Biqāʿ Valley, Lebanon. The attack began with a wide array of ECM equipment—Boeing 707s modified into electronic warfare aircraft, E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft, and A-4 Skyhawks flying reconnaissance—to confuse and deceive Syrian communications and the radars of Syrian SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, and SA-8 SAM units. Small remotely piloted vehicles were sent over the valley; when the Syrians fired on these, Israeli F-4s spotted the SAM sites and destroyed them with radar-homing missiles and cluster bombs. Israeli F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons then destroyed the Syrian air force, downing more than 80 MiG-21s and MiG-23s.

The importance of destroying enemy air defenses and establishing supremacy in the air in order to assert mastery on the ground was reinforced during the Operation Desert Storm air offensive of the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). Allied air forces, led by the United States Air Force and Navy but including hundreds of French, British, Saudi, and Kuwaiti planes, had three objectives: to win air supremacy, to destroy strategic targets, and to degrade Iraqi ground forces in preparation for driving them out of occupied Kuwait. On Jan. 17, 1991, the allies launched the most intense bombing campaign in history, and by January 28 they had gained air supremacy. The Iraqi air defense system of aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, antiaircraft guns, and ground-controlled interception radars was rendered ineffective. Iraqi losses included some 35 aircraft downed in air-to-air combat, some 100 destroyed on the ground, and 115 flown to Iran to avoid destruction. Allied losses totaled only 39 aircraft, none in air combat. The allied air forces then destroyed targets vital to the Iraqi war effort. These included command, control, and communications facilities; ammunition; chemical and biological weapons facilities; petroleum, oil, and lubricant stockpiles; and manufacturing plants. Allied air forces also engaged in search-and-destroy missions against mobile launchers for Iraq’s Scud missiles. Continuing the air war in order to maximize Iraqi, and minimize allied, casualties, the allied air forces disabled some 30 percent of Iraqi ground forces in the combat zone before the launching of the Operation Desert Sabre ground assault. Operation Desert Sabre lasted only 100 hours. Large numbers of Iraqi troops surrendered without fighting, collapsing under the cumulative effects of the allies’ prolonged massive air bombardment and the concentrated firepower and speed of the ground attack.

The importance of ECM in long-range bombing became apparent in 1972, when U.S. B-52 Stratofortresses struck targets in North Vietnam. By flying under escort at night and at about 30,000 feet, the B-52s were reasonably safe from MiG fighters and antiaircraft guns, and Wild Weasel and chaff-dropping aircraft helped suppress the SA-2s. But the most important ECM was provided by jammers built into the bombers. These flew in cells of three in order to create “blankets” of radar suppression that largely foiled the SAMs.

The next generation of variable-wing bombers, such as the U.S. B-1 and the Soviet Tu-26 Backfire, were designed to avoid more sensitive electronic warning systems by penetrating enemy airspaces at extremely low altitude. Flying in groups was to be abandoned, since the large radar cross section and radio communication of several bombers would be easily detected. Instead, the new bombers were designed for solo missions and carried standoff weapons such as nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which could be launched beyond the range of SAMs guarding the target areas.

In March 1999 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which had won the Cold War without firing a shot, launched a 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia to stop the mistreatment of ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo. By the time the Yugoslav government finally accepted a peace accord in June, aircraft from 13 NATO countries had flown more than 37,000 sorties, of which more than 14,000 were strike missions that dropped 23,614 bombs in an air campaign designed to destroy and disrupt the Yugoslav army and special police units in Kosovo. Strategic targets throughout Yugoslavia, such as the integrated air defense system, military command and control headquarters, petroleum storage facilities, and electrical power stations, were also attacked by aircraft and cruise missiles. Some of the alliance’s most sophisticated weapons systems were used, such as the United States’ B-2 and F-117 stealth bombers, which dropped bombs guided by inputs from the satellite-based global positioning system, or GPS. NATO had begun the campaign with great respect for Serb air defenses; in order to minimize risks from antiaircraft guns and missiles, combat aircraft flew no lower than 1,500 metres (5,000 feet). Only two NATO aircraft were lost in combat, but one was an F-117, supposedly invisible to radar. Air tactics in the jet age were indeed being shaped by electronics as much as they were by aerodynamics.